How to Get Noticed if You Are A New User on Steemit

Introduction

I have recently been working on building out Steemithelp.net and the various resources available to new users.

As part of the process I have been asking for suggestions as to what further resources I could provide to help new users.

Yesterday @sykochica suggested to me that it would be useful to have some sort of resource on how new users might go about getting attention for their posts and building up a following.

I agree that this may be something that new users may find hard to do particularly since they are likely to be unfamiliar with the resources at hand and they may simultaneously be being asked to deal with concepts and develop skills that they have not previously used to any significant degree.

Just to be clear I'm no expert on this subject. For all I know I have been extremely lucky and just been in the right place at the right time.

Any kind of success will almost inevitably involve some degree of luck and timing.

I will however try to share what I have learned in the last few months with the hope that it will help others. It is by no means comprehensive in any way and I would be grateful for the insights of others in relation to this.

This is by necessity a long post. I have provided lists and summaries where I can to make it easier to follow. I have also used sub-headings to make it easier to skip to the parts that you are interested in.

Attention vs Following

Getting attention for your posts and having a following are two aspects of the same issue and they both reinforce each other.

Looking at this as a problem that needs to be solved we can break it down into 2 parts:

Post related factors - i.e. the content and presentation of the post.

Promotional factors. - i.e. how you promote the post and your blog.

Part 1 - Post Related Factors

Most of this is fairly obvious. I am not a professional writer and there are many people in the community who are much better qualified on detailing what constitutes "good writing".

I will therefore only be dealing with the most basic points:

Topic - is there an audience?

Tags - are they appropriate and optimal?

Content - is it any good?

Formatting - can people read it easily?

Images - is there visual interest beyond just text?

Verification/References - is it your work, did you give credit?

Timing - is your audience active when you post?

Persistence - keep at it, few people get noticed right away.

Topics

If you post on topics that don't interest people or have low visibility on the site then it may make your post less likely to be noticed particularly if you don't have many followers.

You can get an idea of topics which are popular by going to the trending page and noticing the list of tags on the right hand side of the page - these are the popular topics.

Note this is a double edged sword - if you post purely in the popular topics then you will actually have a lot of competition so your post may be seen but it may actually be less likely to be read.

It could be argued that a better strategy might be to look for gaps that are not being covered and slowly build up your audience there.

My personal strategy is to just post on topics that interest me. I think if you post on something you aren't interested in or don't care about then the quality of your posts will suffer.

I talk about the subjects that I like and that I am interested in. Some topics are inevitably more popular than others and get different levels of activity. Personally I don't worry about that.

Further I think that as time goes on and more people join Steemit there will be a sufficient enough audience for every niche to make this less relevant.

Titles also seem to make a difference in my experience. If the title is not engaging then it is less likely to attract new people.

Tags

I've included tags here as that is essentially part of your "topic". Do not tag "spam" that will result in negative attention and could potentially kill your reputation.

Having said that you can use tags intelligently. For example if you are doing a car post, then you might find that "cars" is a more popular tag than "automotive" - in that case it would make more sense to prioritise "cars" as a tag and only use "automotive" if you have an unfilled tag.

Content

When it comes to content I think it is a very subjective matter. Some people like shorter posts which are straight and to the point. Others like longer and more in depth posts.

There is no single correct way to do it.

Like I said I am not a professional writer and there are people who can advise you on this much better than I can.

If I like what I have written then my hope is always that there will be others who feel the same.

Formatting

The internet is a very visual medium. Posts that are visually attractive and easy to read will do better than those that aren't.

A solid wall of text is about as easy to read as a pile of shredded paper.

That means using good formatting practices to break up the text. You could make a post that is an absolute masterpiece but if it is badly formatted people will move on to something that is less work for them to read.

Use paragraphs, headings, and spaces.

Also learn how to use Markdown - it will greatly speed up your composition and make formatting easier too.

Images

It is very rare to see posts without images doing well on Steemit. Think of it like a race for attention. An image can grab your attention a lot more quickly than a paragraph of text.

Images are not only a means of grabbing attention though. They are another way of conveying meaning and increasing the power of your words - they enhance what is already there. They can also help to break up the text.

Personally I use a stock image site (Thinkstock) as it saves me a lot of time and the photos tend to be of a high quality - this is not cheap though and most people would not be able to justify the cost.

Persistence

This is really important. Few people will get noticed right away unless they have amazing luck or have good connections.

The more persistent you are the more likely it is your work will get seen. It is a matter of probability. That is not an excuse to put out high volumes of junk posts though. That will not help you at all.

If you keep putting out good work of a consistent quality AND on a regular basis you will eventually gather more and more followers.

Right now we are still in the early days of Steemit so any work you put in now will be a lot more effective than if you start when we have a million users or even a billion.

Part 2 - Promotional Factors

These can be broken down into 2 subtypes

General Networking - talking, commenting, making friends.

Post Sharing - on other media and websites.

General Networking

This can include anything from commenting on posts to actually meeting people in real life or chatting in other venues.

I am not going to cover every possibility but the more you do to connect with people on a human level the more likely it is that they will follow you and be interested in your work.

It is simple human nature.

Some possible ways to do this are:

Commenting on posts and answering your comments.

Helping out other users/new users

Sharing and promoting the work of other people.

Getting involved in community initiatives.

Commenting

Commenting is quite possibly one of the most effective ways of building relationships with other users as it happens on Steemit itself.

I often find one of the most rewarding parts of making posts is reading the great comments people make and I am sure I am not alone in this. I also make sure to put aside sufficient time in thanking people for their comments. It shows people that you do actually care and listen to what they are saying.

If I come across someone that never responds to their comments then I rarely go back to their posts no matter how good they are - it negates the point of a social platform like Steemit.

It should be noted that commenting counts as "activity" on your post and will raise it's profile within the "active" posts channel on Steemit. This is a deliberate measure to encourage social engagement on the site so don't neglect it.

Helping Others

Another equally important thing is to help out other users, particularly those who are new and are not necessarily in a position to be able to help themselves. Take a look at this fantastic post by @whatsup on the subject.

Promoting Other People's Work

This could also be considered as part of helping others. It also helps by giving more visibility to good content which benefits us all as a community and a platform. It also makes it more likely that others will copy your example and they just might do the same with your work too.

Community Initiatives

There are a number of community initiatives that are designed to reward good quality content.

The most famous of these is Project Curie - which you can read about here. You can help out these groups by notifying them of good content that you find (make sure it follows their criteria).

Post Sharing

Some examples of places where you can share your posts are:

Other Social Media - Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc

Rocket Chat

Discord

Other websites (e.g. your own)

Facebook and Twitter

You can share to Facebook and Twitter directly from the footer of any post. There has been recent talk of "shadow blocking" a process by which Facebook in particular may be reducing the visibility of posts from Steemit.

One proposed workaround to this is to use a URL- shortener such as Bitly. As to whether this actually works it is hard to know without actually knowing exactly how Facebook reduce the visibility of Steemit related posts. It is quite easy to do though and takes very little time so there is not really any disadvantage.

Indeed one added advantage of using Bitly is that it can track some of the basic metrics of people clicking on your links.

This is useful for tracking engagement and the potential effectiveness of your sharing policies.

Facebook Groups

There are various Facebook groups where you can share posts. Here are the ones I know of:

Hi thecryptofiend
I am thankful for the time and effort with which u had to come up with ( a beginners' guide like) this. Indeed it is at the very least informative, eye-opening and instructive. While I look forward to a great experience here at Steemit, I must say it would do me great pleasure to be one of your prodigies. That's if you would oblige me. Gracias

Unfortunately I am so busy right now I don't have time for that. @sykochica used to have the steemprentice group in the chat - I'm not sure if that is still going or not but you might want to ask if it is.

The Steemprentice group kind of fizzled out a while back. However, I did just put this post up today where I'm donating some time to give one on one help to users. @eonwachukwu

Was there anything in particular you were looking for or hoping to do/achieve? Trying to help new or struggling people has been something I've been trying to keep focused on for a while here on Steemit.

Feel free to direct message me in steemit.chat or discord (im sykochica in both of those) if you prefer it instead of a public comment. :)

Thank you for all the information that you put together. It is very helpful for me a newbie at Steemit. I will come back and review several more times. It also makes me more comfortable knowing that information is there for the people I will bring here to this platform. This took lots of time and energy and effort. I appreciate it.

WOW! Thanks for all this info. I just got approved and have spending a few hours , could be read days, trying to find the best approach to making this work for me. I am really quite illiterate when it comes to networking and related things. I have bookmarked this page and am sure I will be returning often with the next few weeks to gain more insights. Your articles have given me some good ideas for the introduce myself page which I hope to be putting together shortly and some future post that I hope other will also find interesting Thanks again! Have a great day!

Thanks a lot for your entry-level articles! As for a total beginner who just logged in here today, it gives me very nice overall picture what can I expect from this community and obviously also how I should behave and react. I am really excited to discover Steemit community and hope that most people stick to these nice rules and guidelines, because they will make the entire content enjoyable a lot!

Thank you for this great post. The information is of course most needed for newbies, but I also really enjoyed your layout which is clear and easy to read and a great example of how we can edit posts to be appealing to the eye. My first post is still in word being amended so I will probably need to read your Markdown post again when it's ready to be published!

All your photos are also great and I agree that breaking up text with some relevant images does make a huge difference.

I've read a couple of your posts for helping newbies now and I like your caring attitude and desire to help. I have to say I'm confused about this witness and voting or upvoting for whales or support, but I'm sure I'll find some more about this somewhere.

Is there a way to 'save' posts that we want to read again? If we Resteem them does that make them easier for us to find them, or do we need to bookmark them?

Thanks for your reply, I will bookmark posts that I'll want to refer back to.
I've only voted so far and not Resteemed yet.
So the purpose of Resteeming is to share with others so it is seen more and the author can get more votes? Who is going to see it when you Resteem, just those following you? So if you're new and don't have many followers then a Resteem isn't going to be seen much.

So the purpose of Resteeming is to share with others so it is seen more and the author can get more votes? Who is going to see it when you Resteem, just those following you? So if you're new and don't have many followers then a Resteem isn't going to be seen much.

Yes exactly only your followers (and you) see it so it is not worth it unless you have a decent number of followers.

Thank you for taking the time to put all this together @thecryptofiend. It must have taken a while! I try to catch a couple of newbies a day - you have seen some of my posts about the platform. It is daunting!
Tags are a problem. Why would you invent a new tag to post into. You would be mad! There is no earthly reason for a third of the tags to be Steem related unless Steemers just want to talk Steem - unlikely. I posted the other day and received no suggestions because, I believe, that right now people post for votes and hope an auto-voter comes along at the right time so new/trending gets it and/or @curie which is doing a great job. You only have to look at the new/hot/trending/active lists to know that the algorithms are weird. Sorry to rant but it matters. See this, as you did ask for it: Steemit and lost in translation
Thank you again. Great to see someone else cares and DOES something about it

Thanks. Yes putting the information together does take a lot of work. I think with people using new tags it is a case of them not realising how to use them properly or that there is a way of seeing what is active.

Some of it is a bit daunting. May I just encourage you to persevere? Please reply to this or any other message if you feel at all lost. I shall assist if I can! I shall follow you and watch how you get on. One of the major keys to success is building a strong follower base.

Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.

I think persistence is the number one method to succeed.

It is frustrating and even insulting when your posts get no attention whatsoever. I experienced it, and I know how it feels. I wanted to give up. But something inside me kept driving me on, and now I am gaining an audience and getting results. I would strongly encourage any newcomer to

It seems to be the case. I was encouraged to do a lengthier food article after being upvoted on my previous writings. I prepared a meal with photographs taken all the way through, and wrote a recipe and instructions to make it. It's reasonable to say I put much more effort into making it than in my previous posts (combined). And suddenly it got almost no votes at all. It is frustrating to say the least.

Not sure but it does seem to take the fun out of it. I think I need to re-assess what and how I'm going to write here in the future.

I"m glad you were persistent in replying to my posts, @countryinspired. It took a few times before I finally looked at your page and followed you. I'm glad I did, but it was your persistence that made it happen.

And I appreciate you, and your posts as well!

I always like finding new users to follow, but doing so makes it harder to read all the good posts in my feed. If I don't upvote everyone's post, it isn't because I didn't like it. I just can't read all of them.

lots of good info here, not only for newbies but everyone. BTW, my Twitter posts seem dimmed - too bad because I have a large audience that isn't being reached effectively. I'll try bit-ly, but it seems futile anyway b/c my Twiiter followers can't vote

Thanks. I'm not sure what Twitter are doing - do you think they are hiding our posts too? Anyway even if people can't vote it might actually encourage them to get curious about Steemit or at least put it on their radar. Thanks for your support:)

As someone who is still new, I'd suggest NOT whale hunting.
Don't go looking for the big hit straight off. Instead connect with other new people. Remember that over time you will be the 'old hands' and those people you befriended at the start will also be moving up in the ranks.

Look at finding yourself a niche. @pappa-pepper is very successful at this, just like you :-)

Be NICE! No-one want to hang out and follow someone who is miserable and negative.

But the most important thing all newbies need to do is go to my latest post and upvote the hell out of it!
hehe

I hope others - including the whales in particular - will appreciate the continued effort you have put into this and in helping newbies in general. Your posts helped me a lot after I signed up, and what you are doing now is going to benefit this community in a big way as we grow. New members of the community need this.

Great post! I'm new to Steemit, and still figuring out which tags work best. In recent weeks I started the 'dispatches' tag, since that's the name of a weekly newsletter where I recommend great writing and podcasts. So I guess I'm at the beginning of a long-term process to see whether that particular tag will develop its own following here.

Great tips here cryptofiend, very true. There is so much to the interaction side of any social site, steemit especiallly. I love what you said about comments, its the one thing I've seen help my reputation and grow followers faster than anything, even just being on steemit for a relatively short time. Great post, very helpful!

Another really great post. What an awesome bunch of comments too. There is some very valuable information here and I'm resteeming it in hopes of referring new users to this post. Sweet share! Thank you.

@cryptofiend I have been thinking about checking out Discord. Do you like it more/less/the same as Rocketchat? My initial thoughts are it may target an audience which does not engage with Rocketchat.

I have also been experimenting with Outbrain and promoting some of my own content. I think with certain content it's a great fit. I write about taxation, subcultures and american heritage so it works for me. I would encourage new authors to consider learning SEO optimization and explore sites like Otbrain, Stumbleupon and so on. Have you tried an of those services to drive traffic to your articles?

I really appreciate your post. It is a good starting point for us newbies. You asked for any corrections of spelling or grammar...and well... I found one. I have a bit of a knack for seeing these sorts of things, even though it is not in my nature to be such a stickler for perfection.... The Typo is HERE "The Reward Pool

Since a fixed amount of Steem is prouced every day then the amount available for rewards every day is also fixed. Depending on how many people vote and curate those rewards ........"

This post has been ranked within the top 10 most undervalued posts in the first half of Dec 01. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $26.56 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.

Thank you cryptofiend. This is my first day on steemit and I've already read 2 of your posts on navigating steemit (and just realized they were both authored by you). Super helpful. Looking forward to sailing along with the big fish on this new and interesting ocean.

Very much so. I've been reading up all day today on how steemit works, and your posts have come up several times to help me. Thank you! It's too bad I can't reply in thanks to some of the older posts that I've learned from. I gather you can't reply to a post after about a month?

Thanks for your post, you have been of great help to newbies like us.......... It shows you really have the mind to help and likewise you shall not lack help or support.......... I know we would become very good friends as we support each other cos my niche is also CRYPTOCURRENCIES..............